UGANDA President Yoweri Museveni’s changes to his cabinet at the weekend rewarded close allies and dismissed potential opponents,
signaling his intention to extend his 29-year rule, Teneo Intelligence said.

Museveni replaced Finance Minister Maria Kiwanuka
with her deputy, Matia Kasaija, because she was viewed as “less loyal” to the
ruling National Resistance Movement, Ahmed Salim, an analyst at Teneo
Intelligence in Dubai, said in an e-mailed research note.

The 70-year-old leader also appointed David Bahati,
author of an anti-gay bill that led to cuts in aid by donors, as a minister of
state for planning to boost support from the youth and religious conservatives,
Salim said.

“The common factor with most of the appointments
was that all individuals sided with Museveni in the ouster” in September of
former Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi, who is now viewed as a potential rival in
elections scheduled for 2016, he said.
“Mbabazi will now face serious
difficulties in establishing the necessary campaign infrastructure” to challenge
the NRM.

Museveni has ruled Uganda
since 1986, when he took following a five-year guerrilla war. He has won all
four elections held since 1996, though the last vote in 2011 was criticised by
international observers and rejected by opposition parties who said it was
marred by voter intimidation and fraud.

Ugandan lawmakers in 2005 removed presidential term
limits, allowing candidates to seek re- election until the age of 75.

Museveni ranks as one of Africa’s longest-serving
leaders along with Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Jose Eduardo dos Santos in Angola
and Paul Biya of Cameroon.

Bahati’s appointment as a minister was “a big
shock” for the gay and lesbian community in Uganda,
Frank Mugisha, head of Sexual Minorities Uganda,
said in an e-mailed statement on Monday. Bahati in 2009 introduced proposed
legislation that sought the death penalty or life imprisonment for gay people
in Uganda. The death penalty was
removed from the bill before it was signed into law by Museveni in December
2013.

Uganda’s Constitutional Court in August nullified
the law after it cited flaws in the legislation process. Bahati has vowed to
reintroduce the law.